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Ilia Chavchavadze's Village Studies and the Principle Of European Scientific Journal November 2014 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.1 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 ILIA CHAVCHAVADZE’S VILLAGE STUDIES AND THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUALITY OF GEORGIAN SOCIETY Mikheil Gogatishvili, Prof. Grigol Robakidze University, Tbilisi, Georgia Abstract We can consider the work of the Georgian thinker and writer Ilia Chavchavadze - "Life and the Law” as one of the first works in village studies. Ilia make deep comparative analysis. It is expressed in fundamental differentiation between Georgian and Russian mode of production. Thanks to Ilia Cavchavadze's essential analysis, it is ascertained that Georgian mode of production has in bases private property but Russian mode of production - communal ownership. According to Chavchavadze, village society in Russia is established on different base than in Georgia. Keywords: Village studies, Individuality, Ownership, Private property Introduction The village as social microcosmos and peasant household are the object of deep research of sociologists, anthropologists and ethnographers. The village life style and type of economy includes many factors that presents itself as mental, cultural and economic components and forms one whole social cosmos. The latter is a condition of mental rhythm for country life style. This mental rhythm provides an understanding of private property, freedom and individuality which express themselves in national cultures, and in some way give rise to the relationship model for the whole world. Therefore, the interest in village is caused by the fact that the style of village economy is the major condition for the essential reproduction of human life and culture. This interest is conditioned by set of interests; special attention is paid to particularity of coexistence of village life (living together). From this set of reasons particular mode of production takes special place that is conditioned by work on the land. The peculiar form of organization of work - household economy also belongs to these reasons.114 From this perspective, the work of the famous Georgian thinker and writer Ilia Chavchavadze - "Life and the Law" is flagged under our attention. We can consider this writing as one of the first works in village studies. This work in its essence is many-sided but we want to pay attention to the problem of individuality and commonality. Despite the fact that Ilia Chavchavadze did not develop general theory of village sociology, in any way his work forms classical criteria of village studies; insofar as he considers: 1. Social structure of village population; 2. common style of peasant production; 3. Life style of village population; 4. The work in - agriculture, style of labor organizing and management of production; 5. The level of life village population and principle of household economy. We will also mention the fact that when Ilia Chavchavadze worked on this work, not only village studies but also sociology was at birth. Moreover, Ilia Chavchavadze bases his point of view on reflection of leading European economists and sociologists such as John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, John Ramsey McCulloch, Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye and so 114 Thomas W., Znaniecki F. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: A Classic Work in Immigration History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1927. Turner D. Peasant Economy as Social Category // Great Stranger/ Ed. T. Shanin. Moscow: Progress, 1992. 164 European Scientific Journal November 2014 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.1 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 on.115 Worthwhile to mention that classical works in village sociology is based on experience and generalization of particular national communities village's style of life.116 Ilia pays attention to informal social-economic structure of village and essentially describes social life style of Georgian village. It should be noted that Ilia Chavchavadze based the study object on the structure of everyday life of Georgian villages. For this reason Ilia Chavchavadze’s research is methodologically rigorous and presents many worthwhile social facts of village life.117 Unchanged model for describing the traditional society has always been a village community. We meet it in different civilizations which are often regarded as proof of a universal model of social development of the world. But we cannot unite lifestyle of peasant communities of different societies in one form. For explaining the way of life of peasant communities, Ilia uses the comparativistic methodology. The lifestyle of peasant communities of different European cultures such as Scotland, France, Italy, Russia and Georgia is taken as the object of analysis. In all cases the lifestyle of the peasant communities is determined as community. Moreover, essential parameters of that lifestyle of peasant communities do not coincide. So, we have three different social institutions which cannot be placed in a common definition. According to Ilya Chavchavadze, both in Europe as well as in Georgia's economy peasant communities were based on the principle of individualism. But in Russia, it was based on the collectivist tradition. This form of the peasant economy was based on the implementation of collectivist economic activity and all the efforts of its dissolution were unsuccessful and were always reconstructed in a new form. The principle of equalization (from the Russian word uravnilovka) was unknown to both - European and Georgian peasant economy. This phenomenon was characteristic only to Russian peasant economy. This phenomenon implied periodic exchange of the land between peasant communities.118 Hence, Ilia Chavchavadze makes very interesting conclusions that concern individualistic and collectivistic mode of production. His research was related to the question of land purchase which was very urgent after abolishing of serfdom in Russian Empire. This problem was also related to the legislation that was established by Russian Empire. Properly, this legislation demanded from peasants guarantee from community at the time of purchasing land. According to Ilia Chavchavadze, this legislation was in contradiction with Georgian peasant traditional mode of production. “It is in contradiction with Georgian peasants’ style of thrift, economical condition and structure. In Russia, it has its own justification. In Russia, there is common ownership of the land (in Russian - Мирское) and hence, they have common obligation. We can say neither good nor bad about common ownership, but we will say only one thing - common guarantee does not have place where common ownership does 119 not exist”. Hence, if in Russian peasant wished to buy land, the whole community should 115 Ilia Chavchavadze. Life and Law. Selected Works in 5 volumes. Vol. IV. Tbilisi, 198, pp. 305, 309. 116 For instance, research of the Chinese researcher Fei Syatun. Syatun F. Chinese Village from the Ethnographer’s Point of View. Moscow, 1989. 117 Modern researcher, Theodor Shanin, who works on informal structure of village society, called his research method reflexive peasant studies. Our reference is conditioned by the fact that Ilia’s effort generally coincides with the problem of sociology of village. Shanin Th. Reflexive Peasant Studies and Russian Village. // Reflexive Peasant Studies. Moscow, 2002. 118 Even at the beginning of XX century exchange of the land between community peasants was widely spread. It is known that Stolypin's reform for dissolution collectivistic mode of production between community peasants was unsuccessful. Despite the state support collectivist mode of production of community peasant be turned into private ownership of the economy, only a small number of peasants left the community. Most of them are back in the economic "world" of the peasant community. Later, collectivistic mode of production created in agricultural sector in the Soviet Union essentially was reconstruction of the traditional form of Russian peasant community. 119 Ilia Chavchavadze. Life and Law. Selected Works in 5 volumes. Vol. IV. Tbilisi, 198, p. 319. 165 European Scientific Journal November 2014 /SPECIAL/ edition vol.1 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 be in guarantee. Ilia bases his point of view on the analysis of the well known Belgian economist Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye and mentions that common guarantee is possible only in case when it follows from common ownership. While Georgian mode of production or land ownership and structure of economy was based on household economy or family economy, its essence was family ownership and not common ownership. For this reason, a general guarantee in Georgia was only the status of the obligation and the rights that had Russian peasants but not Georgian peasants.120 Ilia makes deep comparative analysis. It is expressed in fundamental differentiation between Georgian and Russian mode of production. Thanks to Ilia Cavchavadze's essential analysis, it is ascertained that Georgian mode of production has in bases private property, but Russian mode of production - communal ownership. According to Chavchavadze, village society in Russia is established on different base than in Georgia. In Russia, peasants do not own land by hereditary. Land in common ownership in Russia means that nobody has it in permanent ownership. For this reason Russia has two kinds of ownership: in one side peasants possess land in common ownership and on the other side aristocracy possess land in private property.121 But in Georgia, ownership of the land was only private property and there was
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